How Humility Fuels Personal and Organizational Growth #SuperhumanFramework

Good morning, LinkedIn. Happy Thursday. Welcome to another episode of let's Build Superhumans with George B. Thomas. How you doing, man?

Dude, I'm doing good. I'm. I'm excited to be here, enjoying the journey, and can't wait to get into today's topic. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. I mean, how could I not be when I get to build superhumans? I mean. Yeah. And today's topic of the humility pillar. So we've already talked about holistic, happy, and helpful.

Yeah.

And, you know, while all this stuff is designed to fit together, if you have any chance of those things, humility is pretty important, man.

Yeah, I think it's definitely an important layer of this entire framework. And, Chris, what I'll do real quick is we are trying to make superhumans. We're trying to make super organizations, we're trying to make super teams. And if this is somebody's first time tuning in, what I want them to realize is this whole idea of the superhuman framework. It's all about elevating individual humans, teams, and organizations to reach what we hope for aspirationally is that they can reach their highest potential. And this is by focusing, Chris, on the four, what we're calling the four cornerstones that we talked about in the main first session that we did on the superhuman framework, where we're leaning into these ideas of love, purpose, passion, persistence. And then aligned with that is the 10H elements that now you and I are going through, which is happiness, health, hunger, helpfulness, humility, humor, holistic, honesty, humanity. And next week, we're going to talk about holiness on the back of humility. And so, you know, together, these four cornerstones, these H elements, these. These principles can be hopefully this guide in creating a life and in creating a work environment that is balanced, purpose driven. And here's the thing, if you know me, I'm all about the humans is deeply human centered. And so the cornerstones, the reason that they're important is because love fosters authentic connections and trust. Purpose keeps us aligned with what truly matters. Passion drives us forward with enthusiasm, while humility, by the way, keeps us balanced in that persistence will help us navigate setbacks with respect, resilience, and adaptability. And so, again, all of these are these layers or elements that get us to what we're talking about today, which is humility. Now, Chris, do you have, like, initial questions? I know where I think I want to start, but where's your brain going right now?

Well, I think the juxtaposition of superhuman and humility doesn't necessarily make sense in the same sentence, so break that down for me.

We can do that easily by talking about what humility is not and then really diving into what humility is, at least when we're saying it. And what we would want the humans, the teams, and the organizations to leverage, learn, and portray in their kind of daily lives and daily action. So the first thing that we have to get straight, most people have humility all wrong. Bottom line. Most people, when they think about it, they think that it's being weak or potentially letting people walk all over you. Nope, wrong. Like, don't even think about that. Like, humility is actually about having strength to stand firm without the need to feel like you need to overpower anyone. And I want everybody to just go to that person that you immediately thought of when I said that, because you've worked with or for or lived with that human who just feels like the way that they're winning is by overpowering. And that doesn't have to be. It's about being confident enough to say, I'm good at this without needing to put it in everybody's face or rub it in everybody's face. Like, Chris, this is literally why for so many years, I'll be like, I'm just a guy. Yes, I happen to be good at HubSpot. Yes, I happen to be good at building websites. Yes, I happen to be good at user experience. But I don't need to put it in everybody's face. I just like to sit back and humbly add value to conversations based on knowing that I'm good at these things that people need help with. At the same time, it's about recognizing your wins. Oh, I'm winning. It probably had to do with a little help from. From the people around you. And these are your teams. These are your. The other employees. These are the other leaders that you're trying to achieve and trying to thrive together with. And this can be little things where you actually just take the time to point out that, yes, we had a team victory, but it is directly tied to this other human versus feeling like you have to stand up there and be like, yes, we. I am winning. Like, no, it doesn't have to be that. So you can see there's, like, definitely a kind of spin on what people might think about it. Another, I'll call it a myth, is that humility. And as I'm kind of talking about this, you might see where I'm, like, trying to bust down that wall is that humility has no place in leadership because again, that portrayed weakness. I say bullcrap. I actually believe that that couldn't be further from the truth. As far as leaders and humility, like humble leaders, in my opinion, are some of the most effective leaders because they know how to do a couple things really great because of their humility or the humbleness that they bring to it. They are great at building trust, they are great at empowering their teams, and they are great at creating an environment where everyone, everyone has a chance to shine. And by the way, that's what individual humans want. They want a place to shine. They want to feel like they're seen, heard, understood. They want to bring themselves to the world. But many of us are scared to do that because it isn't the environment that invokes us that ability. Some folks, Chris, think humility makes us passive or I hate this word anyway, wishy washy. Here's the deal. Humility helps you make better decisions by keeping you open to new ideas and different perspectives. And I'll humbly say on this show right now that I think this is one of my superpowers, personally and professionally, because I'm open to new ideas and different perspectives. I've even been called Chris, a transition specialist before. Why? Because I've been open to pivoting and as needed in my life, was a web developer, designer turned HubSpot guy turned podcaster turned video guru. Now it's AI like T shaped marketer is what you always hear people in our industry talk about. But that's a bunch of pivots. That's a bunch of transitions based on being humble enough to be open enough to actually navigate where life might be needing to take you. Imagine if an entire team could have that or an entire organizational culture could be transition specialists based on what the world brings and what their consumers and what modern buyers are bringing to them as their needs. Humility gets boiled down to like, oh, they're a modest, humble. It's not about modesty. It's about having a mindset that values others. A mindset, Chris, that stays curious. And this one, by the way, for all the marketers in the room watching this, a mindset that shows empathy. Humility and empathy are entangled in each other and what you'll be able to bring. It's not about having low self esteem. It's about being secure in who you are without constantly needing. And again, there's going to be a human that pops right to your head without needing to constantly shout it from the rooftops. It's not a One and done trait. It's not like humility, check, move on with my day. It's a way of living, always growing, always learning and adapting to whatever comes your way. And, Chris, before I get into what it is, deeper into that, I want everybody to know that there is a very real moment in my life where I was like, oh, I need to be humble. And we talked about this on the beyond, your default podcast. When we did good ego versus bad ego. I was like 21, 22 years old. I was working at a camp. It's a Christian camp called Faith Ranch in Jewett, Ohio. And at the camp, I was a camp counselor, a horseback riding instructor, rappelling instructor, archery instructor, certified lifeguard. Like, I was all in on, like, let's create the camp experience. I made $100 a month, room and board and $100 a month. And I had been saving up money in this motorcycle came up for sale. And I decided I wanted to buy the motorcycle. And the owner of the camp said, I don't think that's a good idea. But I bought this motorcycle, 500cc Honda motorcycle. We were going to go shoot some hoops, me and a couple friends that worked at the camp as well. I hopped on the motorcycle, we drove in, we shot some hoops on the way back. I'm kind of showing off because I'm king, whatever. I'm on the motorcycle, you know, got the leather jacket, got the shorts on, got the helmet on, and I'm showing off and I'm going a little bit too fast. About 80 in about what should have been a 55 opossums walking across the road, and I try to dip out and dip back in. My front tire hits the berm of the road. My bike does six flips. They find my gas tank 150 yards on the other side of the road. I come to, I can't undo my helmet. I can't move my arm, can't move this shoulder. I'm like, take my helmet off. They're like, you might have a neck injury. I'm like, I wouldn't be standing up if I had a neck injury. Take the helmet off. Dirt. I was, like, getting claustrophobic. I pass out. They sit me on the end of this, like, first EMS arriver truck. I remember passing out. I come to in the ambulance. There's this larger lady leaning over me, like, working on me. I ask her to marry me, of all things. And then I pass back out. I get to the hospital, I come to just in time for them to be re Breaking my wrist. Long story short, I broke my wrist, dislocated my other shoulder, and ended up with, like, three, four stitches in my knee. The camp owner, by the way, is sitting in a chair next to me, and I'm like, oh, oh, I'm gonna hear it. He didn't. He just sat there. He was humble, and he was loving, and he got me back to the camp. Now, here's the thing. The next morning, I get up, and there's campers arriving, and we're doing this thing, and I realize I have to go to the bathroom. So I go to the bathroom, and, Chris, I'm in there. And I quickly realized, by the way, at 21, 22 years old, unstoppable. Just like, you know, Chris, I realize I can't pull my pants up because I have a dislocated shoulder and I have a broken wrist, and so I have to yell out for help. And this guy, his name's Chuck. I'll remember his name for the rest of my life. He comes in, he pulls my pants up, and he says, are you okay? I said, I'm okay. He walks out. I close the door. I sit down. I start bawling my eyes out because I realize at 21, 22 years old, I'm broken because of my ego. I'm broken because of my lack of humility. I'm broken because I don't have the right focus that I need to be who I'm supposed to be as I walk the rest of the time on this planet. And so from that day on, there's been this little air valve when my head gets too big and people are like, oh, you got to talk to the goat. I let a little air out. I let a little air out because I'm like, I don't want God to break me again. I understand from the one time that I almost died in my motorcycle accident that, George, you need to stay humble. There is a good side of ego, a bad side. Stay away from there. Stay here. And so that's why, like, humility is a staple in the superhuman framework, because it's literally ties back to a part of my life where I'm like, I don't want anybody to ever have to go through that. So I'll pause. You can give me your thoughts and questions where you want to go.

That's powerful story, man. Yeah. I first started thinking about this in depth after listening to Patrick Lencioni's book the Ideal Team Player. As I was getting into, you know, trying to manage multiple people and Getting people aligned on the inbound mindsets and the strategies we've all said that we want to execute. And in that book, it's a. It's a fable about scaling and growing a team. And how do you take what's the core values of the initial team and expand that and you bring the right people in. And he basically suggests three values that are humble, hungry, and smart. And that was probably like 2018, 2019.

It was written in 2016, but. Right.

So when I got to it was around that time and just since then, and even looking at your framework, I like to relate it to the word awareness. And that keeps coming up related to how we could possibly help super admins and HubSpot be super admins. Like, yes, this is one of the few things in your life you have full control over, like, your awareness level. And even you, like, I think one of your superpowers is that ability to understand, you know, things in the moment from an awareness perspective, but also past, present, future. Like even having that. That valve, you know, you need to let the air out. That's definitely an awareness thing where you're aware of what's happening inside, you're aware of what's happening outside. And I relate that to leaders. When you talk about empathy, you think about all the things. And I think that confidence and being able to connect things like a superhuman concept, which definitely, like, confidence is a big piece of that. Knowing that you know a lot and that you can help people, but also knowing that you don't know a lot and can constantly receive help from people, just that level of awareness that gives you the confidence, like you can be more. It's not that hard to have a higher level of awareness than most other people right now. As we know there's social and we're constantly distracted. And that could be the biggest value you bring to any room is just highlighting things that other people might not, you know, be seeing or highlighting another point of view. So that's kind of all of what's in my mind when I think about, yeah, humility comes from, I might know a lot. I also don't know a lot, and I don't even need to know a lot. But if I can just understand that.

You'Re making my brain explode. So there's this whole thing, like, I've taught this to a couple people because I teach people how to teach people. And so I was like, look, you need to realize that you don't need to know everything. You just need to know enough and then know to where to Find the other things to point them to. That's a key piece. The other thing, that confidence and power, Chris, is that it's a really fun place to live when you realize you're a sensei. That wakes up as a grasshopper to be a sensei. To wake up as a grasshopper to be a sensei. There's this loop that I play of, like, I know a lot, but not enough. I know a lot, but not enough, right? And so I just have this cycle of, like, how can I pivot? How can I add this other piece in? The other thing, too, that I want to kind of dive into here is this idea of you mentioned self awareness and empathy. If you're a leader in your listening or watching this, I would beg you to pay attention to self awareness, empathy, merging them together for the ability to read a room. Because when you know yourself and you're empathetic, to be able to read a room, and I'm talking about things like micro expressions and body language and mirroring, like, become a student of those types of things. The effectiveness that you can have based of it, coming out of a loving, purposeful, passionate place as a humble human, like, the stuff that you can do with just that is amazing. I want everybody to understand without a shadow of a doubt. Humility is a dynamic, powerful force that when leveraged or used right in your life, can strengthen your personal growth. It's gonna boost your relationships. There's no rhyme or reason why Chris has the network that he has, why I have the network I have, why we could list off a bunch of other people that have the networks that we have. Other than that, we show up as humble humans to serve and add value to the world. That boosts the relationships. If you are paying attention to this dynamic, powerful force, you can create these culture environments again. I used Shine before. I'll use Thrive this time. Like a place where you're setting others up for success. It's all about courage. Real, genuine courage. Which, by the way, earlier this week we did a beyond your default podcast episode on bravery and talked about bravery and like, courage and how those kind of work together. The reason I'm bringing up courage is because most organizations, you might not be able to do what I'm about to say, and I fully realize that. But it's about having the guts to admit when you're wrong, have the guts to ask for help, or again, have the guts to say, hmm, I don't know. Those are some of the three scariest words you can say. Depending on what type of organization you work at, because I don't know, can come with a level of judgment that feels like God's wrath. And you're like, but I wasn't finished. I can find out. This culture we live in where everybody thinks we have to have the immediate answer and that we can't take time to figure it out. Like, humility understands. Like, oh, it's okay for me to say that, to follow it up with. I can find out.

That's interesting. Like, because from the perspective of wanting to help people with HubSpot and growth, like, in general, after being on the inside and trying to, like, fast track the buy in and then just start executing over top of people that really haven't bought in yet. So many conversations. Like, the goal of the conversation is to get them to say one of those three things, especially, I need help, or I don't know, because if we can't get. Get them there, then there is this. Like, it's just a lack of safety, whether anybody's highlighting it or not. And it just. You can't move forward with the conversations that you need to have. If that buy in, like, the buy in that I actually need help, that it's okay to ask for help, then it's okay not to know. Even if I'm the leader of this organization. I've been in charge for 30 years and I know more than everybody else. Right. You don't know everything.

Yeah. And this is why I think I would double down. Like, again, if you're listening or watching this and you're like, been there, done that, heard, like, yes. Okay, how do I. But why should I think about adding this level of humility to my life? I just kind of want to paint a picture of like. And by the way, this is kind of lived experience. Humble people excel because they're open to feedback, they're adaptable, and they're always ready to learn from the mistakes. Which, by the way, could be a whole nother conversation of, like, is there truly mistakes or is it just life's lessons? I digress. Humble people, they don't let their ego. I talked a little bit about good ego versus bad ego. They don't let their bad ego drive their decisions, which means because of that, they end up making better decisions. Let the air out so I can make good decisions. I gotta stay making good decisions. I can't let bad ego win. And so this becomes more effective, honestly, no matter what role they're in, just being a humble person and being adaptable and being able to make good decisions. Better decisions based on, like, I have to look or portray myself as a certain way. So this is why I'm like, I can't wait to do these, like, in person workshops or, like, sessions like this where I can be like, stop thinking of humility as a nice to have and start seeing it for what it really is. A powerful, strategic approach that drives growth, trust, and success in your life and in your business. Oh, my God. Like, that's what humility is. That's what you need to embrace. That's why you need to see how can I inject it myself and all the humans that I work with and how is it this, like, overarching cultural pillar that we're paying attention to?

Why do you think it's so hard? What are the top reasons in your mind that it's so hard for people to maybe take this on?

Yeah, well, one, I think it's a little squishy. Like, normally, like, we're having a conversation, it's not squishy at all. Like, very, very matter of fact of, like, here's what it isn't. Here's what it is, here's why it's important. But usually, like, we don't take the time to dive into what it really means, why it's important, what it unlocks, how it works with other things. But that's what we're doing here. So now you come out of this and you're like, oh, humility. Shoot, I get it. By the way, we could say that about a lot of other things that are hard in our life. Like love. Love is squishy. Love is Hollywood. No, it's not. Have you even researched that there's 13 different types of love, like, agape. Anyway, I'm not going to go there, but, like, my point is it's squishy. Nobody that I know of other than, like, I'm looking at the ideal team player that you mentioned and the humble, hungry, smart. I'm like, oh, I got to get that book. I need to see what. I haven't read that one. But, like, go into any organization and, and see, like, is this something that you're living out in a daily practice? Go into somebody' life and say, is that something that you're living out in a daily practice? Even if they are by accident, they probably aren't by design. And what we're saying on this session, Chris, is like, how do you do it by design? How are you purposely paying attention to it? The other thing that I'll say, and this is going to come across A little bit hard nosed. They don't wanna. An ego trip feels good sometimes being the guy with the motorcycle and the leather jacket and being the shit. Like sometimes you just want to be that. But not really because actually that's the mask, that's the facade. That's the COVID for who you really are. Like if you truly want to get into who you are really you get real comfortable with humility and self awareness and self empathy and a lot of other self dash things that we could. Right. But I think that the two that I'll mention here is they just don't wanna and it's squishy and it's hard to understand sometimes.

Yeah. And like using some empathy and in my experience usually the don't wanna. There's no negative intent. It's just because it's so hard. Maybe somebody in the past has told them the opposite thing. Like you gotta be strong leader. You gotta. All the reasons you mentioned for why this is what humility is not. There's a lot of ways to get trained in life that tell you why you don't want to focus on this stuff. You can't focus on this stuff if you want to get ahead or, or make money. Hopefully we're helping you unlearn some stuff and learn some stuff at the same time.

Yeah. I'm literally probably about to write an article on the question that you asked me because you know me, I had to go over and kick in Giovanni and ask Giovanni, Hey Giovanni, why do most humans. Which by the way, if you're listening and watching this, who the heck is Giovanni? That's my personal and professional growth GPT that I've been building out. So I asked Giovanni, I said Giovanni, why do most humans, teams and organizations struggle with humility? I'm not going to read all of it, but Chris, fear of vulnerability is a real thing. Especially for men embracing our vulnerability. Like go read a Bernie Brown book or two. Just please. All the men in the audience just please and embrace vulnerability. I have a whole story that we could tell about that. But need for recognition, literally that's where I'm like sometimes it feels good, sometimes you need it. The misconceptions, it's squishy of humility, cultural and organizational norms. That's not how we've done it for the last 22 years. It's not how we're going to do it now. Like fear of losing control or authority. What like seriously lack of self awareness. We've talked about that short term mindset. Ladies and gentlemen, we are playing A long term game. If you as a human are not playing a long term game, if your teams are not playing a long term game, if your organization is stuck in short term tactics and strategies and not a long term purpose with passion, then humility might be hard to interject. I'm just gonna throw that out there.

That is also a path to get you on a better path. Yeah, man, that's, that's powerful stuff. Like when you say culture, like the productivity focus of the US in general, there's always a stark difference. Whenever I go to, you know, with my wife to like Spain or Colombia where her family is, and it's just like, man, they prioritize things that are not work because the culture does not prioritize work in the same way that we do. And once I started thinking about that, it can be a touchy subject for some. But when we start talking about work, life balance and all these things and how you're supposed to lead an organization, why can't people just show up and do their job job? And the human way is not to spend every minute of every day trying to be as productive as possible.

Yeah, Chris. Oh my gosh. I can't believe, like time flies. I want to, I want to give you this before you land the plane because I want to go. I really like, last week I was like, chris, can I be a little aspirational for a second? I want to go there, right? So like, and again, I'm going to say these words and fully understand that you might be in an organization that is trying to get there, hasn't even started, or maybe you're in an organization and you're like, check, we're good. But also, there's your personal life. I want you to imagine a world where humility is at the core of how we grow as humans, work in teams and build our organizations as we move forward. Because if humility guides us, we become more self aware, we become more connected, and we become more resilient as humans. Teams become safer, more innovative, more united, and organizations because of that, become more adaptable, more inclusive.